The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Dress is DIY | bow is DIY | tights from Daiso | shoes are Naot Kedma's | lipstick is MAC (Ruby Woo) Ever since I made this caterpillar dress, and was made aware of the existence of real hungry caterpillar fabric by some lovely blog readers, I have been trying to get my hands on some to make another dress with! I eventually tracked down a few different hungry caterpillar prints at fabric.com. I'm really happy with how the back of the dress turned out (I basically tried to copy the back of this dress without the scallops) BUT I feel like something is missing, and so I'm not completely happy with it yet. I think that I probably need to add a waistband to break up the middle section, but I'm not sure what fabric I should use for it. The top or the bottom fabric? A different colour? Or is it missing someting else? Throw your ideas at me, I'd really appreciate your input! (And I'll totally mail the person/people with my favourite ideas a hungry caterpillar hair bow, too. Incentive! Yeah!) I learnt something which I never knew about caterpillars the other day! I was actually listening to the Radiolab episode "Black Box" when I learnt this (which was a really, really good episode - you should listen to it if you have the time.) Image from Radiolab When caterpillars become butterflies, they undergo a period of metamorphosis in which they shed their skin and wrap themselves up into a chrysalis, which I knew. But what I didn't know was that during the process of metamorphosis, the caterpillar itself literally turns to mush inside it's chrysalis. Enzymes digest the body of the caterpillar into a "soup" of fluids and cells, and from there, it reforms into a butterfly. This in an excerpt from How Stuff Works on the process: Much of the body breaks itself down into imaginal cells, which are undifferentiated -- like stem cells, they can become any type of cell. The imaginal cells put themselves back together into a new shape. In the 16th Century, after observing this process, naturalists believed that caterpillars were actually dying and then a completely new life form - the butterfly - was arising from the goo, so degraded did the original caterpillar appear. We now know that the butterfly is, genetically, the same animal that went into the chrysalis, and that even though the majority of the body turns into goo, it can even retain its memories of its life as a caterpillar. The story on radiolab about the metamorphosis of caterpillars is amaaazing and I recommend that you listen, right now (click here if you can't view the embedded player below). It gets all metaphysical and less science-y in the last four minutes, but it's definitely still worth a listen. (Go to ~0:20 to skip the ads) I hope that you're all having a woooonderful day! p.s. The winner of the $200 Sarsparilly giveaway is Nancy W.! Thank you so much for everyone who entered. I so look forward to bringing you more giveaways just like this, with amazing handmade and smaller online stores such as Sarsparilly, in the future! Thank you for supporting them! Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr